Big news coming from Apple about iOS 15 last week could mean a major pivot for the email marketing industry ... or not.

On June 7th, Apple announced:

"In the Mail app, Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email, and masks their IP address so it can't be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location."

So what does this mean in practice?

With the option of essentially turning off email open-up tracking via Apple's new Mail Privacy Protection, there's potential for a serious impact on email marketing, which relies on data to measure recipient behavior, especially when looking at open rates. This could lead to organizations shifting away from the focus on open rates in favor of other engagement metrics.

Based on the relatively sparse information as of now, Apple's Mail Privacy Protection feature will only affect the open rate -- more precisely, any open events that are triggered by invisible so called "spy pixels" embedded in the email message. Click tracking, shares, subscribes and unsubscribes appear to be unaffected.

Whether communicators will stop tracking email open-ups is still an open (pun intended) question. Either way, the upcoming version of the LISTSERV Maestro permission email marketing platform will have them covered. If Apple's Mail Privacy Protection feature becomes widely used and has a significant impact on the quality and usefulness of open rates, LISTSERV Maestro users will have best practices to continue their email marketing and tracking campaigns without relying on open rates.

Could this option in iOS 15 usher in a new era for email marketing? Time will tell but being prepared for any scenario by using LISTSERV Maestro's functionality and features will serve all communicators well.


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